2006-07 Bowl Season
Posted at 3:00 pm on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 by VinceWith 7 bowls in the bag, the 2006-07 bowl season is underway. In case you missed the games, here’s a quick recap: The bowl season kicked off on Tuesday, December 19, with TCU beating Northern Illinois 37-7 in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. (Try saying that 5 times fast.) Two days later Brigham Young pummeled Oregon 38-8 in the Las Vegas Bowl and got their first bowl win in 10 years. On Friday, December 22, Troy beat Rice 41-17 for their first ever bowl victory. Also getting their first bowl victory was South Florida, who beat East Carolina 24-7 in the inaugural PapaJohns.com Bowl. San Jose State held on to beat New Mexico 20-12 for their first bowl win since 1961, and Utah had a 25-13 victory over Tulsa for their 6th straight bowl win. After being down 10-3 at halftime, Hawaii scored 24 unanswered points in the 2nd half in their win over Arizona State in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve.
After Middle Tennessee State takes on Central Michigan in tonight’s Motor City Bowl, the bowl season starts to ramp up towards next week’s crescendo of BCS Bowls. I won’t talk too much about the BCS games, because I know I’m not going to say anything profound. Obviously, the print and electronic media are closely following those games, so there’s little I can contribute. However, I would like to talk about a few of the non-BCS bowls that I’m looking forward to. There are a few that I consider “must see” games.
- Holiday Bowl – #21 Texas A&M vs #20 California – Both teams are 9-3. Both teams started their seasons 8-1 before dropping 2 in a row. Both teams won their last game of the season (Cal beat Stanford, Texas A&M upset Texas). California is a 4.5 to 5.0 favorite and is the better team on paper. However, A&M is 7th in the nation in rushing (210.5 per game), and I think they will grind out the upset here.
- Chick-fil-A Bowl (aka: Peach Bowl) – Georgia vs #14 Virginia Tech – You may think I’m a homer for choosing this game as a great matchup, and you may be right. However, I truly believe this is going to be one of the better bowl games of the season. This game features two great defenses and two young quarterbacks. This should be a low scoring affair with some big hits. (More on this bowl in my next post.)
- Cotton Bowl – #10 Auburn vs #22 Nebraska – I think Nebraska is better than their #22 ranking. Their only bad loss came against Oklahoma State. The Huskers other losses were to USC, Texas, and Oklahoma. Conversely, I don’t know what to make of Auburn. Are they really the #10 team in the nation? They didn’t look like it when Georgia beat them 37-15. I think both teams have much to prove, and I think Auburn will eek out the win.
- Capital One Bowl – #12 Arkansas vs #6 Wisconsin – I wish I could tune into this game, but I will likely be driving home from Atlanta at 1pm on January 1st. I love this matchup for one simple reason: I want to find out if Wisconsin is as good at their 11-1 record. I think Arkansas is a good team, and based on Wisconsin’s schedule (no wins over ranked teams), I think Arkansas wins this game.
Bowl season is a great time to be a football fan. We get to see teams that ordinarily would never play each other go head-to-head. There are always surprises, usually with a few big underdogs pulling out the upsets. And, as New Year’s comes and goes, we get to see the highly ranked teams play each other for national bragging rights.